11 August 2006 9:28 AM

No, I do NOT agree with Mr Benn about the Middle East

Read Peter Hitchens only in The Mail on Sunday

A few words, mainly of thanks, to those who contributed to the discussion about the Middle East which has been posted for the last two weeks. After visiting Cuba and writing at length about it, I didn't feel able to post a new item last week and thought that the issue was so huge that it would do no harm to let it run. I may do this in future when I have been travelling.

But how strange it is that people will persist in thinking that there are only two views on a subject, and that if you don't hold one, you must hold the other. I am accused of supporting New Labour because I condemn the Useless Tories, and here I am accused of agreeing with Tony Benn because I oppose Israeli methods in the Lebanon.

Now, I do have some admiration for Mr Benn because he thinks for himself, is an opponent of the EU and of attacks on English liberty. But we disagree completely about the Middle East. I am, as he is not, a Zionist. I do not believe in the 'two-state solution' which seems to me to be unworkable and wrong, nor do I believe in 'land for peace', which, to me, is another expression for appeasement through weakness.

My criticism of Israel is this. That I suspect a strong leader ( which Ehud Olmert is not ) would have refused to be provoked by the ambush and kidnapping on the Lebanese border. Terrorists operate by provoking their targets into over-reaction, and into starting wars they cannot possibly win. The only worthwhile victory for Israel in this war would be one that involved a renewed Israeli occupation up to the Litani river, the very arrangement Israel abandoned in 2000 and which i think is impossible now. No UN force would dare take on Hezbollah, and a buffer zone under UN control would quickly fill up with Hezbollah rocket sites once more. America and France have learned the hard way, by heavy casualties, that Western troops in Lebanon are more likely to be targets than enforcers.

Then there is the issue of proportion. I hate to agree with the liberals and the creepy foes of Israel who say that this war is 'disproportionate', but the fact that these people are what they are, doesn't mean they are wrong. I was against the bombing of Belgrade, and the bombing of Baghdad (unlike Jack Straw, who managed to stay in the government drawing a cabinet salary while these things were going on, and whose objections to Israeli bombing are therefore worthless whining).

I was against them because I have in recent years found out what aerial bombing actually does. I grew up in a Britain which cheerfully accepted that it was right to bomb Germany to rubble, because they had started it. I entirely agreed with this view for many years. Then I began to read the full details of what happened when our bombs fell. I was particularly struck by the repeated accounts of the mad women, made insane by the loss of their homes and families, who roamed about Germany carrying their dead babies in suitcases; also by the reports of adult human figures, baked in airless cellars for so long during the Dresden firestorm that they were shrunk to the size of children; and of the great clouds of bluebottles gathered over the ruins of Hamburg after an RAF raid, so devastating that there was nobody to clear the wreckage or bury the huge numbers of civilian dead beneath the rubble. We may not have known then. We certainly know now. This is not a form of warfare that a Christian country can use. By the way this does not even slightly reduce my admiration for the courage of the bomber crews, who were not responsible for the policy of area bombing, or aware of its true effects, and who faced (as most modern bomber pilots don't) serious opposition.

Our ancestors, my grandfather's generation, who grew up before 1914, would have regarded this sort of thing as barbaric and unthinkable. Genuine, terrible shock ran through the country when German warships bombarded Scarborough and Hartlepool, and when German airships and planes dropped bombs in British civilians. Quite right too. We should, in 1918, have banned aerial bombing of civilian areas by treaty and declared it a war crime. Instead, we began to do it ourselves notably in Iraq, because it was cheaper and easier than sending soldiers.

So if Israel wishes to go after targets in Lebanon, it must use soldiers to do so - something it is increasingly doing but which I don't think Mr Benn will support. Yes, this will lead to painful casualties among those soldiers, but - if you must have war - it is better that soldiers die than that women or children do. I might add that such operations will also be far more effective and accurate than the lazy and (these days) rather cowardly method of dropping high-explosive from the sky, while sitting in a near-invulnerable aeroplane.

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There is no way that a 'Christian' can fight any kind of war. War is wicked and evil, but if you want to prevent yourself from being enslaved then some times you have to go to war.
All nations are created and sustained by violence, it is for this reason why there are no Christian Nations. There are nations that have respect for Christian concepts ( such as England in 1939 ) and some that despise Chritianity ( such as Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia ). Those nations that are anti-Christian ( who set themselves against Love ) tend to fall.
Ariel bombardment is pure evil. It failed in Vietnam, and shamed the West. Nixon fell in disgrace. Those who set themselves against The Spirit of Love will fail.

"For him who destroys a life it will be as though he has destroyed all Mankind. For him who saves a life, it will be as though he has saved all Mankind".

A. ALI then states that "Shockingly (for many) this is a quote from the Quran."

Not to pick nits, but in the interest of accuracy, these quotations were actually written in both versions of the Jewish Talmud (the Jerusalem and Babylonian Versions) some 500 years before the birth of Islam. See Jerusalem Talmud, Sanhedrin 4:1 (22a) and Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 37a, both of which should be available at your local library.

When a war is won, there is usually about a three generation pause before the later beneficiaries of that victory declare their ancestors, who faced physical annihilation, war criminals and moral deviants.

These comfortable people use the peace and liberty bought at great cost to view their own history through a prism which distorts all with an eye towards flattering the present generation.

The result in the past led to good Englishmen declaring that under no circumstances would they fight for King or Country.

The result today leads another good Englishman down the same foolish path.

War is war and it never changes. It never has, it never will. When it comes, and come it shall, we will, as always, suffer for our illusions.

Then we will shed them. Then we will win.

And three generations hence, we shall all be war criminals and moral deviants.

Mr. Hitchens is evidently dissatisfied with the number of casualties in the Israeli military and thinks it should have been higher. In the moral equation, is it really suitable unnecesarily to weaken the country's only defence against extermination in order to win Mr. Hitchens' praise for moral behaviour? What articles of this kind demonstrate is that today the national newspapers are just bloggers like any others, but bloggers with money.

What a relief - someone else agrees with me about the bombing of Serbia in 1999 by NATO, i.e. it was WRONG. That particular shameful act carried out by an adulterous president was especially galling for me at the time because everyone around me seemed to support it, and those responsible were the leaders of my civilisation. But Blair and Clinton never went to the Hague. And Blair and Bush have not had to go since the Shock and Awe in Baghdad. Carpet bombing of any country, be it Serbia, Cambodia, Vietnam, or Iraq is HORRENDOUS and must only be used as a very final resort. And even then, it's nothing less than horrendous. The irony is that the weaponry used to carry it out is the product of inventive and highly educated minds. Just think of the POSITIVE things such minds could be put to instead.

Perhaps Israel should have acted sooner by sending in infantry divisions into southern Lebanon instead of relying more on air strikes during the start of the conflict with Iran/Hezbollah.

In view of the ceasefire that has been declared, it would now seem as Iran/Hezbollah will remain firmly rooted in southern Lebanon and that any stationing of Lebanese or foreign is unlikely to prevent firing of rockets into Israel or even stop incursions.

If I am proven wrong and the Israeli operation is successful then the Lebanese government will reassert its authority across Lebanon and, by means of sheer numbers, and with foreign support, oust Iran/Hezbollah from its dominating position; secondly, the Lebanese population, whilst superficially supporting the group, will demand that it has nothing more to do with Lebanon, in view of the devastating Israeli reaction that it has provoked and make life difficult for it.

First of all let me say that I take great exception to what Cecil Fountain says. I have no idea if Peter Hitchens come from a jewish background or not, that is quite irrelevant, and what he writes about the media is just absurd, what has that got to do with this discussion and the article itself. It is not set in stone that you have to be of the jewish religion to agree with what somebody has written.

I agree completely with what has been posted by Neil Craig. I could not have put it better myself.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing. It is very easy to criticise the carpet bombing strategy of the RAF from the position we find ourselves in now, sixty years on from defeating the nazis. Now, we can be fairy certain we would have still won the war without such tactics.

At the time we could not have known that. The war was still very much in the balance, and not just our own survival, but that of a free Europe, was at stake. In that position, the priority was winning the war. If your enemy bombs civilians, that means you have to too. It was war, not a cricket match.

Don't forget, the race to develop the atomic bomb was undertaken with the aim of stopping Hitler, before Germany developed their own. If the war in Europe hadn't come to an end when it did, Germany may well have suffered the same fate as Japan, and Dresden would seem minor by comparison.

I really do not wish to appear as a Hitchens sycophant but maybe some of those critcal of PH's comments on the WW2 bombing of Hamburg and Dresden should read what he actually stated:

"this does not even slightly reduce my admiration for the courage of the bomber crews, who were not responsible for the policy of area bombing, or aware of its true effects,"

I have to confess I was quite moved by this piece. I can't imagine the mental agony of a mother who is reduced to madness by the loss of home and child. My own father was in the RAF during WW2 and he always referred to Germany as being the first country the Nazis took.

Of course without getting into how Hitler rose to power maybe we should all think about what galvanises people into action. The terror attacks of 11th Sept and 7th July were terrible acts of murder. I've long thought, though, people will only react when they are directly effected and their own lives become uncomfortable. In truth, many of us did not know anyone personally in either attack. This, however much we were revolted by it, always makes it more remote. The recent disruption at British airports, has in its own way, had a direct effect on far more people. The legions of us that hear about terror from our own armchairs were possibly the ones having our holidays ruined by delays and cancellations or having to endure long flights without a book. Nothing next to loss of life, but a huge increase in the numbers with a story to tell.

Unless some measures are taken for open debate, with the ever tedious political correctness removed, then a rising tide of anger will manifest itself further in our nation. My employment puts me in contact with many people and I can't believe that one common theme is almost entirely missing from our TV screens, newspapers (to a large degree) and politicians.

I agree entirely with Peter's comparison with bombing Belgrade. The Israeli action is, right or wrong, a defensive reaction to an unprovoked attack on them. The bombing of Yugoslavia was a purely aggressive act aimed to help a group of openly genocidal Moslem terrorists who, for reasons of state, NATO found it useful to arm & train.

The Israeli action unintentionaly kills some civilians almost all being used as human shields by Hezbollah. The 80% civilian death ratio achieved by NATO was managed by deliberately targeting northern Yugoslav cities hundreds of miles from the conflict.

It is literally impossible for Jack Straw, Ming Campbell, Clare Short & many others to enthusiasticly support bombing Serbs & then decry Israel as "war criminals" for their far lesser actions unless they are motivated not by human decency but by the a doctrine that considers Serbs & Jews not entitled to human rights. I thought we had disposed of that doctrine 60 years ago.

I think Mr Spog has missed the point. Peter was not advocating pacifism, merely suggesting that dropping bombs on civilians was(and still is)a horrific and unacceptable method of retaliation, regardless of what the strategy may have been.I recently read a book called "The Judas Code" which suggested that Churchill deliberately bombed German cities in order to provoke Hitler in to bombing our cities in retaliation, rather than our airfields, thereby giving us time to prepare our defences. Entirely plausable, and who's to say where the line should be drawn? You either believe in your cause or you don't. There are no half measures. The only way you can judge is by choosing the lesser of two evils(I believe). In the case of Germany, Britain was fighting for her very life, and had Nazi Germany been victorious then I think the consequences would have far surpassed the bombing of civilians (although it is still a stain on our conscience nevertheless, as Michael McGowan noted above. That's the price you pay for what you believe in) Iraq? Well, all I can say is that we now have the worst of both worlds because now we have another stain on the country's conscience and all for a cause that none, well, not many of us believed in. I don't even think Tony Blair knew the real reasons as time went on. Maybe if we were a "Christian country" led by a "Christian Prime Minister" we might not have been led into this situation in the first place. A good observation by Steve M, above, about multiculturalism. I wonder which "culture" or "faith" Tony Blair is answerable to. I doubt whether it's Christianity. Maybe he can pick and choose whichever one suits him best on the day.

I write this reply to all readers not as a muslim but as a mother, a sister, a daughter and finally (last but by all means not the least) a history teacher. Wars are wrong. Killing people is wrong. There is a famous quote that goes something like this... "For him who destroys a life it will be as though he has destroyed all Mankind. For him who saves a life, it will be as though he has saved all Mankind".

Shockingly (for many) this is a quote from the Quran. Islam is against bloodshed, brutality and cruelty. So are many muslims, me included. For me, when i see death and destruction on the news, I weep for all the mothers who've lost their children, either Jewish, Muslim or Christian.

There must be some sane people out there who must want all this madness to stop...?

Finally, I have been teaching children about WW2 as well as the Holocaust for a couple of years now... I always look forward to someone asking why I care or why Im bothering as Muslims and Jews are supposed to hate one another... My answer is always the same; "humans can sometimes be victims of circumstance or even fate but they should never be the victims of hate".

The unpalatable truth is that if terrorists cannot be defeated militarily then it will eventually be necessary to talk to them and come to a compromise. The IRA could not be beaten by the British security forces and therefore a horrible but unavoidable deal had to be done.

Hizbollah and Hamas can certainly not be beaten by the IDF so the only way peace can come about is by Israel talking to them and looking for a deal. Obviously while they are demanding the destruction of Israel then there is going to be no deal, but remember that the IRA fought for 70 years for the immediate end to British rule in Northern Ireland, but were prepared to give up the armed struggle without achieving anything near that.

The ludicrous criticism of area bombing cannot go unchallenged. The Germans bombed: Warsaw, Rotterdam, Coventry, London, Plymouth and many others. Great Britain, was in a war of national survival, not only for ourselves but the whole of western civilization. The policy of area bombing, given the limits of the technology at the time was the only one available to us. Dresden was just another target, we should feel no differently about bombing Dresden than any of the other targets we bombed. What are we saying here, that bombing beautiful buildings, is worse than bombing ugly ones! The ceramics industry in Dresden had been converted to producing high quality equipment for the German armed forces. If anything the allies had been tardy in not bombing it before.

Peter Hitchens has joined those, including Churchill who have besmirched the name Of Air Marshal Harris. Harris did the job that was given to him. Harris watching the Blitz on London said, 'They are sowing the wind, they will reap the whirlwind,' that is what happened. The allies should not feel any shame or guilt for the policy of strategic bombing of either Germany or Japan, vicious totalitarian dictatorships who deserved everything they got. The only criticism that we should have of the policy of Strategic bombing is that it was not done sooner and harder.

Some people's comments on this site, are so filled with hate for Blair and the present government, they are not judging the present situation correctly. We should be pointing out to these IslamoFascists that a similar fate could await them if they push us to far.

Its also the case that aerial bombardment (other than the one off atom bombs in Japan which could not be repeated as both sides coudl do it) stiffens resolve rather than breaks morale. Another point is that the zepplin raids apparently stopped as the Kaiser felt it was Immoral to do such things and ordered a cease to it. Anti-royalists seem to forget that even the worst royal leaders invariably have far more concern for humanity than the people that replace them.

Peter Hitchens states that in his view the only worthwhile victory for Israel in Southern Lebanon would have been for Israel to occupy that country up to the Litanti River which he states is now impossible.

The problem is not addressed by him of what action would have been required had that buffer zone been created when the Hizbollah forces obtained rockets with a range extended to compensate for the distance put between them and the Israeli border.

That is irrelevant however to Hitchens because he has already taken the view that it is impossible for Isarel to create that zone.

His view, in so far as he expresses one, would seem to be that the staus quo ante should obtain except that then, according to Hitchens, there will be nothing that can be done about the Hizbollah threat because the line at the Litani River can now not be established and other military action could not bring a "worthwhile victory".

If the Hizbollah leaders (and their Iranian masters) share Hitchens view that in a vote on the options open to Israel by military action in Lebanon Isarel can vote for "none of the above", then they for their part will not observe the status quo in so far as they have now set a new norm which is the submission of the population of northern Israel to daily rocket attack.

Hitchens view is then that Israel cannot eliminate the Hizbollah threat if they stay and a fortiori cannot do so if they leave - except perhaps by means of a judiciuously placed column in the internationl press; they must therefore submit to whatever Hizbollah, and one might note their Iranian masters, choose to throw at them.

This is the dilemma on to which Hitchens chooses to force the Israeli state and for which his lengthy digression into the rights and wrongs of WW2 carpet bombing acts, in my view, as a smoke screen.

"This is not a form of warfare that a Christian country can use." - Peter Hitchens

So presumably, if one's country were under attack by a Hitler-type aggressor who was prepared to employ such forms of warfare in order to win, one would have to "turn the other cheek" and let oneself be enslaved? I don't think so. If you must embrace pacifism, however, you should be more consistent about it.

Bad things lead to more bad things. Killing civilians is bad, but what led to it? Lobbing missiles indiscriminately into Israel led to it. The civilian casualties in Lebanon are tragic, but citizens of a country that cannot or will not rid itself of terrorists cannot expect safety. Iran, Syria, and - to a lesser degree - Lebanon are to blame for the civilian deaths in Lebanon.

It needs to be remembered that the bombing of German cities - strategic as well as terror bombing - was carried out for political reasons. At the time, Britain was under a lot of pressure from the United States and more particularly the Soviet Union, to open a second front in Europe. This was seen as the only way Churchill could turn to his allies and show he was doing something offensive to the Germans! However, this much-vaunted strategic bombing had no effect on German industry until the very end of the war. It should be noted that German war production reached its peak as late as 1944.

Sadly, modern politicians still see air wars as a more acceptable face of warfare, believing it minimises the bodybags returned home. They still seem to have failed to grasp the simple fact that bombing civilians - whether in London, Liverpool, Dresden, Warsaw, Belgrade or Baghdad - merely stiffens their resolve to soldier on.

Mr McGowan, although I have no argument against you, are you sure the Israelis are using precision weaponry exclusively? We heard these claims in both Gulf Wars and they weren't true. Even if we accept that some of the civilian dead in the Lebanon are Hezbollah dead, it still leaves a lot of dead civilians.

One final point if I may: even though air wars are seen to be more politically acceptable by our cowardly rulers, I must state that air power alone does not win wars. Sea power alone does not win wars. The soldiers on the ground win wars. They plant their flags into the heart of enemy territory, look him in the eye and tell him he has lost. The Second World War was fought simply because this did not happen in 1918. The Iraq War of 2003 was fought because this did not happen in 1991. There are other examples around the world of unfinished wars, just waiting to flare up again. Wait and see. History is full of more examples.

Strategic bombing does not work. It never has and it probably never will.

Peter, as a great patriot (and I'm not being sarcastic) how do you reconcile your patriotism and your Zionism? After all, I don't suppose you care very much about whether the Tutsis get their own country, or the Kurds or the Basques etc. And why should you? Each nation or race essentially has to look after itself. But you have been overcome with a passionate desire to support one particular race in their battle against their neighbours. And you continue to urge us to support them even when it leads to the deaths of many of your own people. Why should this be? I'll give you a clue. It's not the Tutsis, Kurds or Basques which dominate the media.

Israel are guilty of oppressing the Palestinians and many countries in the UN are against the way the Israelis treat them. Oppression always causes terrorist groups to flourish. The British discovered this in Ireland and the Americans in Vietnam.

We only see a very one-sided view in the UK and we need to take a more global view of a global problem. Islamic extremists are becoming very powerful all over the world and we ignore this at our peril.

Our government are diplomatic disasters and too much the lapdogs of the USA. We are no longer a world power and our ability to influence world events is at an all time low thanks to Mickey Mouse Blair and the rest of his cartoon cabinet.

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